Nothing ever determines absolute truth, yet a consensus arrived upon by dozens of experts in the field is a powerful persuasion. They are a collective of intelligence which is totally unlike an appeal to authority, which is generally reserved for a singular authority as opposed to a collective.

Quote: You have to give Carrier credit in that he admits that you should concede to the expert consensus unless you have a good reason to doubt the consensus. He put forth that very case, attacking the fundamentally flawed underpinnings and foundation that the historical Jesus consensus is built upon. He investigated the methods used by historians and discovered that the consensus among those who critiqued historian's techniques, was that they were flawed or applied fallaciously. Thus there is a good reason to doubt the consensus. But that wasn't enough and so he worked on and put forwards a method of applying Bayesian analysis to the historical methods as a more sound method of evaluating evidence; spelled out in his 'Proving History'. I have yet to read Carrier's work on the historicity of Jesus because it hasn't been published yet, because he's jumping through all of the academic and peer review hoops and getting published through legitimate academic channels (Sheffield-Phoenix, University of Sheffield, UK). I have however read 'Proving History' and found it interesting and informative, if a bit dry. Have you read 'Proving History'? Or are you going to critique work that hasn't been published yet?

Carrier's problem is confirmation bias. He's a mythicist out and out, and we need to view him from that position.

So he now believes he has created a better way to evaluate evidence than all the rest of the world's historians? He's decided that history should somehow be determined only by the way he views it?

Seriously, it doesn't matter what kind of theorem Carrier uses because at the end of the day, it is what it is, or it ain't what it ain't. What Carrier is trying to do is confirm to himself that the following are true:

1. Tacitus on Christus is an interpolation.
2. Testimonium Flavium is a total interpolation.
3. "James, brother of Jesus called Christ" in Antiquities is an interpolation.

Everything he does is grounded in confirmation bias and anchored to the Christ Myth Theory. He's not looking for the truth at all. He's looking ONLY for a myth, and when his book is published he will indeed be destroyed by it.

I think it's quite possible that the "experts" are the ones experiencing confirmation bias, Ehrman included. I've already pointed out the very real flaws in his book Did Jesus Exist?:The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, in my post number 274. and I haven't yet finished the book Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth. The book appears to be a great introduction to the best that the Jesus Myth theory has to offer.

You've already suggested that Carrier's views have been refuted long ago, and I asked where.... you have yet to answer.

I don't really care whether or not Jesus was a real person or not.... I do think the mythicists (Carrier and Price specifically) are making a very compelling argument, but I'd be willing to read something that specifically counters any of their (Carrier and Price) claims.

Yes, most "experts" claim that Jesus was a historical figure....but, that doesn't automatically mean we stop looking at evidence that suggests otherwise.

I don't know if Tacitus is an interpolation, but assuming his reference to be genuine, it proves nothing about Jesus' actual existence. There is no indication whatsoever that Tacitus investigated independent records to verify the execution of Jesus. He called Pilate by the wrong title. He called Jesus "Christ" and not "Jesus," which indicates more strongly than anything else that he was working from what Christians believed rather than what independent records revealed. And it's a passing reference, not a treatise on the life of Christ. It would be unreasonable to assume that his passing comment on Christ reflected anything other than what Christians believed.

Nothing ever determines absolute truth, yet a consensus arrived upon by dozens of experts in the field is a powerful persuasion. They are a collective of intelligence which is totally unlike an appeal to authority, which is generally reserved for a singular authority as opposed to a collective.

Quote: You have to give Carrier credit in that he admits that you should concede to the expert consensus unless you have a good reason to doubt the consensus. He put forth that very case, attacking the fundamentally flawed underpinnings and foundation that the historical Jesus consensus is built upon. He investigated the methods used by historians and discovered that the consensus among those who critiqued historian's techniques, was that they were flawed or applied fallaciously. Thus there is a good reason to doubt the consensus. But that wasn't enough and so he worked on and put forwards a method of applying Bayesian analysis to the historical methods as a more sound method of evaluating evidence; spelled out in his 'Proving History'. I have yet to read Carrier's work on the historicity of Jesus because it hasn't been published yet, because he's jumping through all of the academic and peer review hoops and getting published through legitimate academic channels (Sheffield-Phoenix, University of Sheffield, UK). I have however read 'Proving History' and found it interesting and informative, if a bit dry. Have you read 'Proving History'? Or are you going to critique work that hasn't been published yet?

Carrier's problem is confirmation bias. He's a mythicist out and out, and we need to view him from that position.

So he now believes he has created a better way to evaluate evidence than all the rest of the world's historians? He's decided that history should somehow be determined only by the way he views it?

Seriously, it doesn't matter what kind of theorem Carrier uses because at the end of the day, it is what it is, or it ain't what it ain't. What Carrier is trying to do is confirm to himself that the following are true:

1. Tacitus on Christus is an interpolation.
2. Testimonium Flavium is a total interpolation.
3. "James, brother of Jesus called Christ" in Antiquities is an interpolation.

Everything he does is grounded in confirmation bias and anchored to the Christ Myth Theory. He's not looking for the truth at all. He's looking ONLY for a myth, and when his book is published he will indeed be destroyed by it.

Right, Carrier is wrong because you don't like how he evaluate evidence. And it doesn't matter what he says because you don't like him and he's wrong, and he's wrong because he's wrong. And when his book comes out it'll be even more wrong because... reasons...

But neither I nor Ehrman can be bothered to give specifics because that would be giving the opposition cred, and we can't have that.

Seriously?

The consensus that you rally so much about, when it comes to critiquing the very methods used by biblical scholars and historians, have been that the methods are flawed or applied fallaciously. Know what the means? The very foundation upon which the consensus is built upon has glaring issues. Carrier is attempting to make a case for this and to employ a proven mathematical theorem used for determining probability, so the historians can get past arguing generalities and can debate specific pieces of evidence. These can then be debated upon until a range of probability can be reached, then all of them can be taken together in Bayes theorem to accurately determine a probability based on the various ranges of all the pieces of evidence. He's trying to make this process as clear and objective as possible, and yet you dismiss all that as a mere fart in the wind; because he has the temerity to attempt to make things work better? Well fuck, good thing you weren't around to lambast Relativity whenever that was first introduced; because fuck Einstein for attempting to make things work better.

Did the consensus and vast work behind planetary epicycles make the work any less wrong whenever adequate helio-centric models showed that the previous consensus was wrong because it was built upon a flawed foundation? Didn't the consensus used to be that the Jewish patriarchs were actual historical figures, instead of the myths that the consensus now agrees they are? I'm not saying Carrier is right, but your use of the consensus to dismiss his very premise out of hand reeks of laziness and hyperbole.

The 'consensus' has garnered how many different historical Jesus'? Was he a apocalyptic prophet? A rabbi? A rebel leader? The messiah? A Roman agent? That you entirely dismiss mythicism as a possible explanation (among all of these varied and conflicting ideas) for any part of the collective portrait paints you as the fundamentalist. That you seemingly try to paint all mythicist with the same brush and dismiss them as a group speaks to the very foundational problems that Carrier is arguing against.

(23-01-2014 12:41 PM)TwoCultSurvivor Wrote: I don't know if Tacitus is an interpolation, but assuming his reference to be genuine, it proves nothing about Jesus' actual existence. There is no indication whatsoever that Tacitus investigated independent records to verify the execution of Jesus. He called Pilate by the wrong title. He called Jesus "Christ" and not "Jesus," which indicates more strongly than anything else that he was working from what Christians believed rather than what independent records revealed. And it's a passing reference, not a treatise on the life of Christ. It would be unreasonable to assume that his passing comment on Christ reflected anything other than what Christians believed.

This argument was refuted by me a very long time ago. Now let me show you how I will do it again. I am not trying to be adversarial here, for I am just going to use your post above to demonstrate something to you about those kinds of arguments, and how easily they are countered. So i will break down your post piece by piece.

Quote:I don't know if Tacitus is an interpolation, but assuming his reference to be genuine, it proves nothing about Jesus' actual existence.

There is a distinct difference between "proof" and "evidence". Although this entry by Tacitus on it's own cannot prove the existence of Jesus, it is indeed considered to be substantial as evidenceto support the existence of Jesus, and is included in the collection of evidence. It is considered to be a Roman record of the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, with no apparent bias favoring Christians or Jews.

Quote:There is no indication whatsoever that Tacitus investigated independent records to verify the execution of Jesus.

Actually, there is. All through Annals Tacitus is constantly seen as referring to the registry, records, and the works of other writers/historians. Here are some demonstrations:

Annals BOOK I Wrote:But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people have been recorded by famous historians;

Annals BOOK XII Wrote:The boundaries now fixed by Claudius may be easily recognized, as they are specified in the public records.

Annals BOOK III Wrote:I do not find in any historian or in the daily register that Antonia, Germanicus's mother ...

Annals BOOK XV Wrote:I find in the registers of the Senate that Cerialis Anicius, consul-elect, proposed a motion that a temple ...

Those are just a few of many many instances which demonstrate that Tacitus made full use of the works of other historians, the Roman Daily Register, and the Registers of the Senate. So where did he get his information on Christ?

The paragraph which describes the execution of Christ by Pontius Pilate is a part of Tacitus' historical record of "The Great Fires of Rome." That record begins with the following statement:

Annals BOOK XV Wrote:A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire.

Tacitus makes it clear that he got his information about The Great Fires of Rome- which includes the execution of Christ- from previous authors of historical records.

Given the evidence, there is absolutely no good reason, and no evidence whatsoever, to suggest that Tacitus used any hearsay in regards to the execution of Christ. In fact, let me show you what Tacitus' opinion actually is regarding hearsay in relation to genuine history, and he says this right in the same book as he mentions Christ:

Annals BOOK XV Wrote:My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request all into whose hands my work shall come, not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history which has not been perverted into romance.

Tacitus loathed hearsay, and the evidence throughout his works is abundantly clear in that he got his information from previous records and he meticulously verified his sources.

So absorb that, and I will return later to deal with the rest of those arguments.

Annals BOOK XV Wrote:My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request all into whose hands my work shall come, not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history which has not been perverted into romance.

Tacitus loathed hearsay, and the evidence throughout his works is abundantly clear in that he got his information from previous records and he meticulously verified his sources.

So absorb that, and I will return later to deal with the rest of those arguments.

While Tacitus is considered reliable, we don't have the sources he relied on.
The chain of evidence stops at Tacitus, so it's less strong than it could have been.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

Notice that Tacitus does NOT indicate he is relying on records when he discusses Christus. On the fire, yes. And it is the fire of which he writes. The origin of Christianity is tangential to what Tacitus is discussing. He does not indicate that he got the information on Christus' execution from an official source, nor does he take the time to clarify that this Christus is the Jesus whose name would (presumably) be the one that appeared in an official record.

It makes no sense that Tacitus would cite the official record without taking the time to equate Jesus and Christus.

(23-01-2014 03:34 PM)Free Wrote: Tacitus loathed hearsay, and the evidence throughout his works is abundantly clear in that he got his information from previous records and he meticulously verified his sources.

So absorb that, and I will return later to deal with the rest of those arguments.

While Tacitus is considered reliable, we don't have the sources he relied on.
The chain of evidence stops at Tacitus, so it's less strong than it could have been.

Unfortunately most of those sources are lost. Yet the point I am making is in demonstrating that Tacitus did indeed use Roman records, Roman registries, and Roman Historians to research his works.

That's all that is really required to qualify the point in this argument. After all, some evidence is always better than no evidence at all.